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This week's Nature has a new analysis of the incredible Antikythera Device, a sophisticated astronomical calculator lost in a shipwreck around 80 to 60 B.C., and recovered in 1901 A.D. It's replete with CT scans, CGI models, and new translations of the Greek inscriptions.
Named after its place of discovery in 1901 in a Roman shipwreck, the Antikythera Mechanism is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards. Its specific functions have remained controversial because its gears and the inscriptions upon its faces are only fragmentary. Here we report surface imaging and high-resolution X-ray tomography of the surviving fragments, enabling us to reconstruct the gear function and double the number of deciphered inscriptions. [...]The Antikythera Mechanism shows great economy and ingenuity of design. It stands as a witness to the extraordinary technological potential of Ancient Greece, apparently lost within the Roman Empire.
Overview here. Technical paper here. Reconstructed sound(!) of the Device in operation on this podcast.
Named after its place of discovery in 1901 in a Roman shipwreck, the Antikythera Mechanism is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards. Its specific functions have remained controversial because its gears and the inscriptions upon its faces are only fragmentary. Here we report surface imaging and high-resolution X-ray tomography of the surviving fragments, enabling us to reconstruct the gear function and double the number of deciphered inscriptions. [...]The Antikythera Mechanism shows great economy and ingenuity of design. It stands as a witness to the extraordinary technological potential of Ancient Greece, apparently lost within the Roman Empire.
Overview here. Technical paper here. Reconstructed sound(!) of the Device in operation on this podcast.
